Obama $9 minimum-wage increase a buck too low

The Lowell Sun

Updated:
02/24/2013 06:35:17 AM EST

By Michael Goldman

Ask virtually anyone you know if they believe early childhood education is not the single most important element necessary to ensure that every child in the country has the best opportunity for long-term educational success, and the overwhelming response you will receive is yes.

Moreover, ask virtually anyone you know if they believe it ultimately is the responsibility of both state and federal officials to ensure that every child has access to those very same educational opportunities, and again the overwhelming response will be yes.

So why was it that I was not surprised when so many conservative Republican politicians, many of whom "talk the talk" about their heartfelt commitment concerning serious, substantive educational reforms during their campaigns for office, nonetheless hemmed and hawed when President Barack Obama and Gov. Deval Patrick recently proposed just such serious, substantive efforts to achieve such a goal?

As we all know, the answer is when it comes to "walking the walk" and anteing up the dollars necessary to make such programs a reality, suddenly the education of someone else's child doesn't quite balance equally against the financial cost of getting the job done.

All of which leads me to the subject of the day, which is Obama's new initiative to increase the national minimum wage from $7.25 to $9 an hour. (Some states already pay more. Massachusetts current minimum wage is $8, and an additional 18 states already are above the $7.25 level.

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As with the aforementioned issue of childhood education, an overwhelming majority of Americans routinely support their government doing more to raise the piddling rate we currently allow businesses to pay our fellow citizens.

Case in point: Three years ago, a 2010 national survey indicated that 66 percent of the respondents favored raising the minimum rate to $10 an hour, a higher amount than any state currently pays, and a dollar more than the new proposal put forth by Obama. So why the gap in what the public thinks is fair and what even the most liberal voices within the government are willing to offer?

First and foremost, workers making far more than $7.25 an hour realize how impossible it would be for their own families to survive were they paid on such a low wage scale.

Simply put, the current federal poverty threshold for a family of four is a little more than $23,000, while a 40-hour week at $7.25 brings in only a tad more than $15,000. Even the generous $10 per hour the public thinks is fair would leave a family of four short of the magic $23,000 level needed to escape technical poverty, let alone the $9 rate being advocated by the president.

So, if the public "gets it," why don't the politicians we elect?

Well, the answer may well have to do with a different amount of money, the total raised by politicians from businesses opposed to any increase in the current rate.

These opponents of any increase use bogus arguments to insist that raising the minimum rate even slightly will bring about an economic calamity claiming, for example that if implemented employers will cut jobs, reduce workers' hours, and possibly move these jobs out of the country!

Putting aside the fact a locally based movie theater, nail salon, dry-cleaning store or Dairy Queen that chooses to move to China won't do much of a walk-in business, maybe a few jobs would be lost.

But the upside can be huge. As the Center for American Progress has made clear, and the public clearly understands, an increase in the minimum wage translates into real dollars for things like groceries, gas and school supplies.

Also, right now the government often fills the gap between what a worker earns and what it takes for his or her family to survive.

Increase the minimum wage and the government needs to spend less on programs like food stamps to ensure a family doesn't fall below the poverty line.

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